


redshift // blackout

by lumailia



Category: RWBY
Genre: #bossbattle, F/M, Gen, I just really hate that bitch, I promise you that's the only major character death, The one where Adam dies, Unlikely Friendships, also there is KISSING, and lots of fight scenes, freezerburn on the side, have fun, yes theyre called the flock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 22:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15082637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumailia/pseuds/lumailia
Summary: A final showdown, a circle in the sky, and an important (ex)change of words.





	redshift // blackout

**redshift // blackout**

 

+

Despite the soothing rumble of the train beneath her, Blake Belladonna can hardly breathe.

Outside the nearest window, the Forest of Forever Fall rolls past with all the color and motion of a living flame, casting the dining car on the _Valiant_ in an almost bloody glow. Blake finds the faces she sees at home in it. There’s a score of overdressed civilians in her company, but most are members of the White Fang— _Adam’s_ White Fang—their Faunus features covered by garish hats and long, billowing coats. Even Blake has covered her cat ears with her once signature bow. Only this time, it’s white: a message of allegiance to her true cause, but also a warning to her team, should she suddenly unravel it.

At any minute, the _Valiant_ could become a warzone.

Blake winces as a rush of air scores her side. She grips her fork, ready to pounce, but the passerby is only a waiter, his eyes fixed on her untouched plate. “Still eating, miss?”

“No. You can take it. But I’ll keep the glass.”

She drops the fork onto the plate, and the waiter adds it to the high stack of dishes on his tray. “I’ll be right back with a refill.”

As he heads for the door to the kitchen car, Blake scans the tables he passes. Weiss sits three tables up on the right, picking at her food as one of Adam’s lackeys attempts to flirt with her. From a table by the back door, Yang and Ruby watch them, Yang’s jaw set with annoyance. If Blake’s nerves weren’t eating her alive, she might laugh. Her teammates, even with danger achingly close, still act like nothing but themselves.

Ruby catches her staring first. She gives Yang a nudge, and they both feign sips of their water: a sign for, “so far, so good”. Blake’s eyes travel down the aisle to Weiss. She brings her glass to her lips, but quickly slams it down as the White Fang grunt curls a strand of her hair around his finger. With a flick of her wrist, she swats him away.

For Blake, this is the worst part. The anticipation, knowing you’re on the precipice of disaster, but having no idea when it will strike. Blake lets her hand drift to her hip, where Gambol Shroud hides beneath the tail of her coat. Just feeling the edge of it is comforting. When the time comes, when this lurid red calm blooms into chaos, she’ll be ready.

A soprano whistle sounds above the mix of conversation and clattering dishes, sending a pulse of adrenaline rocketing through Blake’s veins. It’s the first warning, coming from Weiss as she daintily swirls her finger around the rim of her glass. Ruby and Yang soon join in. Blake jerks her gaze to the aisle, where a young man with buzzed hair has gotten up from his seat. He moves with a practiced swagger as he sheds his coat, leaving it in a heap on the floor. One defiant step forward, and the dragonfly wings on his back shoot out to full span, glittering like the green surface of a lake.

Gasps ring out from the crowd of diners. Utensils drop to the floor. Blake grabs her weapon by the hilt.

She knows this man. Aeron Bo. Never one of Adam’s higher-ups, until the true White Fang picked off the rest of them. His presence confirms something she already knew, the reason for the caustic mix of fear and anger swirling in her stomach.

Somewhere, on one of the _Valiant_ ’s ten passenger cars, is Adam.

“Hello, travelers,” Aeron starts. He raises his arms proudly, parallel to the stretch of his wings. “You’re probably all wondering why I’m here. Me, a lowly Faunus, trespassing on your precious human kingdom. It makes you itch, doesn’t it? Knowing I snuck onto this train undetected, without a single judging eye passing over me. I can see it on your faces.”

Blake watches Weiss inch away from the Fang member at her side. Over her shoulder, Yang is already fuming, but Ruby holds her back. For now. They know the plan—no fighting back until Blake gives the final signal.

“I know what you feel,” Aeron continues, pacing up and down the aisles. “You feel invaded. Betrayed. _Disgusted._ The same way we Faunus felt when you took our lands, forced our people to mine for your tools to destroy us.”

The rest of Adam’s grunts stand in their places, disguises tossed and weapons drawn. The motion draws another round of cries from the passengers.

Aeron slips a needle blade, silver and gleaming, from his belt. “You humans all want to be heroes,” he sneers, “so rest assured you’ll be martyrs today, dying for your foolish, pointless kingdoms.”

At the last word, Aeron grabs a human passenger—a young woman, hardly older than Blake herself—and slides the blade beneath her chin, just grazing her jugular.

“Looks like you’ll be the first of our heroes to fall today.”

Blake tugs at the ribbon on her ears, setting them free, and across the room, Ruby leaps onto her table.

“No she won’t!”

She slings Crescent Rose off her back and into her hands. One grunt moves to trip her, aiming for her ankle, but she brings the mallet end of her scythe down on his wrists, breaking them with enough force to smash him belly-first into the floor.

Blake turns her focus back to Aeron. He’s stunned, judging by the anxious flutter of his wings, but he keeps the human woman squirming in his grip. After Ruby’s outburst—and his men now moving on the other civilians—he has even more incentive to kill her.

The old Blake might hesitate. Her nerves still want her to. But no more hiding. No more shadows.

Blake draws Gambol Shroud and runs for him.

She aims between his shoulder blades, right where his wings sprout. A weak point. In the span of a breath, Aeron turns out of her path, tossing his victim aside. He launches into the air and draws a second blade from his belt.

“Blake Belladonna,” he says, in a tone that sounds sickeningly like Adam’s. “Come to try your hand at us again? Our leader always said you were smart—you should know better than to walk into a trap.”

Blake swings again, but Aeron stops her blades with the cross of his own. “Yeah? Then your leader should know better than to make his traps so obvious.”

Aeron uses the force from Gambol’s blade to ricochet backwards. He flies forward before Blake can brace herself, landing a kick to her sternum. The impact knocks her to the ground. Pain spreads from her chest across her ribcage, tears prick in her eyes, but she refuses to let it slow her down—she’s taken far worse hits before. She rolls back to her feet and bats at Aeron again. This time, he’s simply flown too far out of reach.

“Hey Blake, I’ve got you!”

Weiss steps atop her chair, Myrtenaster drawn and pointed. With graceful movements of her arms, she peppers the air with dust-channeled fire. Two bursts land on Aeron’s wings. The burn is enough to stun—he drops gracelessly onto his back…

…and right into Yang’s path.

“Nice eye tattoo,” she says. Her boot collides with his chest, pushing the wind from his lungs. “It’s not too often my enemies come with premade targets.”

Ember Celica ignites, and Yang drives her burning fist down towards his eye with enough speed and force to crush his skull.

Yet the hit never lands. Aeron drives his needle blade clean through Yang’s ankle, toppling her. She screams, a trigger for Weiss to lunge in retaliation while Blake dives for her partner, guarding her like a shield.

“Are you okay?” she cries.

Yang lifts half her body from the ground. Tears rim her eyes. “I’ve been through worse.”

“We need to get you to Jaune.”

Yang holds out her arm, silently urging Blake to pull her up. “We _need_ to keep fighting. My aura can handle it.”

Blake obeys, slinging Yang’s arm over her shoulder, and together, they stand.

“You go with Weiss to the left, I’ll take the right with my sister,” Yang commands, leaning on one foot. “I’m going to make sure that mosquito bitch pays for it.”

With a punch at the air, Yang goes flying down to the other end of the dining car, leaving only a spot of blood in her wake.

Seeing Yang back on her feet snaps Blake into clarity. She and her sister take up a familiar fighting rhythm, one they’ve been sharpening their whole lives. Weiss, however, stands alone, using a shield of ice to protect a cluster of civilians huddled against a window.

Channeling her Semblance, Blake leaves behind a clone for the Fang members to fight over while she jumps onto the table with Weiss.  

“Is Yang okay?” Weiss asks over her shoulder.

Blake doesn’t get the chance to respond. Two Fang grunts make a jump for their table, sword and staff angled for attack. With a quick jerk of her arm, Blake converts Gambol into gun-mode and fires. She hits the staff-wielder just beneath his collarbone, sending him into the back wall of the dining car. He slumps empty-eyed to the floor.

The sword-wielder, a girl with insect antennae sprouting from her head, is not so easily downed. She deflects Blake’s bullet with her sword and leaps onto the table. Weiss quickly reforms her wall of ice between herself and the Faunus, but her sword breaks right through.

“Focus on the passengers, Weiss,” Blake cries. “I’ll take her.”

Weiss nods and hops down from the table, forming a second wall of ice from the floor as the one on the table disintegrates, leaving Blake in full view of her enemy.

As the Faunus girl’s sword comes down, Blake reactivates Gambol’s blade. She’s just in time—their blades clash, shadow black against crimson-edged silver.

“I’m not going to kill you, sweetheart,” the bug-girl croons. Her antennae knock together, flickering with hypnotic pink light. “Adam asked us to take you alive.”

Closing her eyes against that steady, entrancing blink, Blake drives Gambol Shroud forward even harder. “And Adam,” she says, gritting her teeth, “has no say in what happens to me.”

With all her strength, she wrenches her upper body to the right, knocking the bug girl finally to the floor. Blake readies her gun, but Weiss is already on it. A spear of ice cuts through the hanging chain of one of the dining car’s massive chandeliers. Blake holds her breath on instinct as it falls, its crystals throwing a rainbow of colors, right onto the bug girl’s head.

“Where’s the dragonfly?” Weiss asks. Her gaze flickers between opposing points of chaos—civilians grappling with the White Fang at the back of the car, Yang and Ruby decimating grunts at the front. Blake finds Aeron backed into a corner, wings pinned to the wall with serving knives. The method is makeshift and crafty—Ruby’s handiwork, no doubt.

But it’s Yang who delivers the punch that finishes him off, leaving his tattooed face a mess of scorch and blood.

She backs away triumphantly, but quickly loses balance, and Ruby has to steady her. There’s no telling how much of the blood now staining the floors came from Yang’s leg.

“Weiss, do you think you and Ruby can hold it down in here?” Blake asks.

“Yang and I need to meet up with the other team. Besides, I don’t think it’d hurt to have Jaune take a look at her leg.”

“You know I once took out an entire swarm of Lancers by myself, right?” she responds, lips curling into a confident smile. “I think we can handle it.”

Blake takes off down the aisle, leaping over crumpled bodies of White Fang grunts, dodging the ones that still fight with graceful swings of her sword. They fall as quickly as they rise.

“Yang!”

She turns, eyes blazing red, but the sight of her partner cools them back to purple.

“Is it time?” she asks.

Blake nods, slipping her scroll out of her coat. “Let’s go.”

Yang throws open the door to the next car. Instead of proceeding, they make a sharp right out the emergency exit, setting off a flurry of alarms in their wake. It doesn’t matter. If the passengers of the _Valiant_ didn’t know they were in danger before, they will now.

The ladder to the roof barely clings to the train wall. Still, Yang dares to go up it first, grabbing the first rung arm she can reach with her mechanical arm. As she hoists herself up, she nearly slips—her ankle is still healing. 

“Are you okay?” Blake calls.

“I’m fine. Just spot me.”

Blake follows up the ladder behind her, one hand braced to Yang’s back. When they both reach the roof, they have to balance on their knees—the roof is curved in a way that makes in nearly impossible to stand right away, with the _Valiant_ rattling down the tracks.

Eventually, they do. The train roof is mirror silver, burning hot enough under the sun to warp the air above it. Near one of the front cars, Blake spots a shadow moving up to the top, crowned in a blaze of hair as red as the forest around them.

She slides her thumb across her scroll and waits for Sun, as he always does, to come running.

+

For a man who seems to pride himself on tact and secrecy, Adam Taurus certainly is a loudmouth—Sun can hear him talking in the next compartment, going over his plans with two very quiet subordinates.

Though Sun has only known of Adam since Blake entered his life, he can’t help but find him familiar. His baseless bravado, his nasal cries for revenge—he sounds like the punks Sun quarreled with on the streets in Vacuo, the ones who used to pick on him before he was accepted to Haven, and none of them made the cut.

Adam is really nothing more than that: a whiny punk with too much power.

Still, in a way, Sun can see how Blake loved him. He talks a good game, easily deceptive to someone who isn’t trained to see right through it. Sun hates that Blake couldn’t. He hates everything Adam did to her—groomed her, abused her, took her partner’s arm and happiness and sent Blake on the run. Made her believe she was a burden to people like himself, like Yang and Weiss and Ruby, who love her.

Sun knows men like Adam aren’t worthy of forgiveness, or mercy. But maybe behind that Grimm mask there’s something human, something worthy of love, and for Sun, that’s the most terrifying thought of all.

Across the table, Ilia’s body flickers in red. She’s practicing a new color of camouflage, a way to blend in with the Forest of Forever Fall, should the fighting spill beyond the walls of _The Valiant._ At her side, Jaune watches in awe.

“That is…so cool.”

Ilia ignores him—surprisingly, considering they’ve mostly gotten along well during the journey. Returning to her normal coloring, she directs her attention to Sun instead. “How much longer?”

“We don’t leave this car until Blake gives us the signal,” he says, keeping his voice low. He looks down to where his scroll rests dormant on the table, waiting. Beside it rests a pair of red-lensed plastic glasses, given to him by one of the train attendants. Sometime this afternoon, a full moon will eclipse the sun, and everyone on the _Valiant_ will want to peer out their windows and watch.

Unfortunately, Sun and his crew have more pressing concerns than what’s happening in the sky.

Sun hears the door to Adam’s compartment roll open, followed by a chorus of footsteps. He scoots closer to the inside window, angling his face just so he can peer into the hall without Adam catching him. It’s not likely he would, anyway. His masked face remains straight ahead, lips upturned in a cocky smirk.

_Not for long, though._

“Do you see him?” Ilia asks, throwing her whisper across the table.

“He’s heading for the next car,” Sun responds. “Either there, or out the emergency exit.”

“You don’t think he knows Blake’s car?” Jaune asks.

“Team RWBY put themselves in a dining car full of White Fang lackeys,” Ilia says. “It’s only a matter of time before he finds out she’s here.”

A pit of worry forms in Sun’s stomach, even though it shouldn’t. Blake can handle herself, especially with her team by her side. But he loves her—by the gods does he ever love her—and he’ll worry for her like he was born for it.

The emergency lights flare to life above their heads, strobing in rhythm with a piercing alarm. Where Ilia simply covers her ears, Jaune nearly leaps out of his seat. Equally startled, Sun feels his whole body flinch.

“Is that the signal?” Ilia calls over the alarm.

“I don’t think so,” Sun shouts back. “Adam must’ve tripped the system. Probably trying to get onto the roof.”

As if on cue, his scroll illuminates. Blake’s face appears, which makes his own soften, but only for a second. The text that accompanies it is a simple _SOS._

Sun grabs the handle of their compartment door and pockets his scroll. “She needs us. Is everyone ready?”

Jaune and Ilia nod.

“Then let’s go kick some White Fang ass.”

Sun slides open the door and leads the way out. The aisle is choked with confused passengers, all holding their ears and staring up at the lights. Sun’s team charges right through them, headed for the emergency doors. Adam and his officers are already out of sight, but their objective isn’t to follow them—it’s to get to Blake.

They file outside. Wind whips across Sun’s face, brushes up his shirt. He can hear Adam stomping on the roof, the noise growing softer as he moves further down the train. Sun takes to the ladder, a silent order for his team to follow.

Adam’s officers—a tiger and a doe Faunus—turn to face them as Jaune finally steadies himself on the roof. But Adam is long gone, leaping from car to car on his way to a smudge of black and yellow near the back of the train.

+

_He’s going to kill me._

A surge of fear, cold and unwelcome, rivets Blake to the roof of the _Valiant._ She feels Yang’s hand, her real one, latch onto her shoulder, but the touch barely registers. Adam is gunning for her, train cars passing listlessly under his feet, and the fury in his stride has her frozen.

She was ready for this. She _is_ ready for this. They’ve selected their weapons, made their choices. She’s repeated the truth to herself a million times:

Where Adam became one with the shadows, Blake chooses to walk in the sun.

“Yang, you ready?” Blake asks. Her voice comes out stronger than she expects. _Good._

“Ready? I’ve been dreaming about taking out this asshole for years.”

Blake takes a sharp breath through her teeth. “Then that makes two of us.”

“Three if you count your _boyfriend_.”

If this were any other battle, Blake would laugh. Probably tease Yang back about Weiss. But Adam is getting closer, gait slowing as he reaches his edge of the very physical rift that stands between them.

It isn’t until he stops, mere inches from the gap between cars, that Blake feels it. An anger of her own variety—not bright and flaming like Yang’s, not cold and focused like Weiss’s. Blake’s anger is sharp, speaking to another side of her, to a darkness she can control.

The last time they stood like this, it ended in horror. Blake on the run, Yang lost and alone, Adam victorious. But today, Blake won’t let history be repeated.

Blade ready, she takes one long step and throws herself over the divide.

+

The tiger Faunus is named Koriam. He’s one of the dust miners Adam recruited, a soldier in the Second Battle of Mantle—Sun can tell by the miner tag printed down his neck, marred by three red slashes of ink. He’s wielding two short daggers, which Sun can easily keep away with his staff, but their fighting is dangerously nearing the edge. Koriam swings low, causing Sun to jump and nearly lose his balance.

He swivels around to the front edge of the car—that way, if he falls, it’ll be onto the bridge between cars, and not the forest floor. Koriam follows, but Sun torques his shield into a rapid spin, fast enough to create a shield effect. Then, he takes his chances and bats at Koriam’s chest.

The hit lands true. Koriam falls onto his back and rolls off the side of the roof. His claws dig into the metal, but it’s futile. Sun has already broken his staffs into gunchucks, and one bullet to the hand is enough to send Koriam falling to the tracks.

Sun turns his attention down the back of the train. Ilia is standing her ground against the doe Faunus, Jaune poised at her side, shield up. Further down, Adam has nearly reached Blake and Yang. The sight turns his stomach.

“Ilia! I have to go!” Sun calls.

She flicks the doe Faunus aside with another strike of her whip. “We can handle it, Sun!” she calls. “Go help Blake. She needs you.”

Without another thought, he runs.

+

Blake strikes—and she misses.

Her feet come down hard on the next car. Adam slides out of the way, only to incur another hit from Blake. He stops her with the motion of Wilt, his sword, but she keeps pushing, every muscle in her body fighting to edge him off. To watch him fall.

Always, he resists.

“How come you never want to fight me alone, Blake?” he taunts. “And it’s always the same entourage. Your friends I’ve defeated, who you know don’t stand a chance against me. It’s almost like you’re waiting to lose.”

For everything she could say to him, every vile curse she knows he deserves, she remains silent.

She leaves a clone in her place and flips to jump behind him, but it’s a trick he knows. His sword is ready for hers, and they clash again and again, black and red bursts of aura flaring as he drives her back across the roof of the kitchen car.  

“Is that what you want, my love?” he continues. “To come running back into my arms? Wouldn’t surprise me if your little monkey boyfriend disappointed you.”

It’s the mention of Sun that cracks her. “Shut _up_ Adam,” she says, and she swings her blade even harder, igniting a storm of sparks with the friction.

“Hey, what was that about being disappointing again?”

Sun strikes the back of Adam’s neck with his staff, causing him to loosen his grip on his Wilt. Blake backs away, and somehow, through the glare of anger and adrenaline, a smile finds her lips.

“There you are,” she exhales.

Adam whirls on Sun, unable to resist a new opponent. He unsheathes another sword and takes to fighting Sun with both hands, the new blade cutting after the old.

“You alright?” Yang asks behind her.

Blake feels instant relief at the sound of her voice. “I’m going to be.”

But right now, she’s torn. Adam’s back is completely vulnerable. She could aim for his neck, just like Sun had, only her hit would be lethal. But with Sun so close to the edge, there’s no telling what Adam might do in his last seconds of retaliation.

The thought of losing Sun—after coming all this way, after all they’ve done for each other, after every time they’ve _saved_ each other—causes a tugging in her throat, the first warning of tears. She swallows against it. 

Luckily, Sun seems to be holding his own. “Pretty bold of you to choose a train called the _Valiant_ ,” she hears him call, “considering you’re nothing but a coward.”

Adam seethes. “Do you. Ever. Stop. Talking?”

Sun converts his weapons, swinging the nunchuck ends of his gunchucks into Adam’s blades. “Oh, that is _really_ rich coming from you.”

Adam pushes Sun nearly over the edge. He teeters backward, losing his balance in a harrowing second before regaining his footing and firing on Adam with the gunchucks. Adam evades them, deflecting one round of bullets with Wilt, and missing another entirely. Sun’s mouth gapes in shock—

—and Adam uses it as a moment of weakness.

Blake runs, the world around her blurring in violent, vengeful red, but she’s too late. As Sun leans away from Adam’s blades, he sacrifices his balance and goes tumbling over the edge.

Blake screams, tears breaking through. Then Yang is diving for him, propelled by a burst from Ember Celica as she grabs him under one arm and hoists him onto the top of the next car. To Blake’s relief, she spots Ilia and Jaune running towards them.

Then Adam turns, grinning. “Looks like it’s just you and me, Blake. Destiny is funny like that,” he says. He sheathes his new blade and clamps both hands on Wilt—it seems he wants an equal fight. “It will always be us in the end.”

“No, Adam. There is no destiny,” Blake cries over the roar of the train. “There’s only the choices we make, and the consequences that follow. And you have made all the wrong choices.”

“Have I? Perhaps facing you on my own was a bad choice,” he says. “Except I’m not really alone.”

Blake’s eyes go wide. Adam pulls some sort of signaling device from his jacket and presses the center button. The device emits a high screech, loud enough to push Blake and her teammates to their knees, hands clamped over their ears.

Against her better judgment, she looks over her shoulder. A slew of White Fang grunts are now climbing onto the roofs of all the other passenger cars, all manner of weapons strapped to their backs.

Something cold slides beneath her chin: the blunt edge of Wilt, tilting her face upwards. Back to him.

“It’s over, Blake,” he says. “Gods, I love watching you kneel.” 

She says nothing—he doesn’t deserve her words. Instead, she just spits at his feet.

If he planned to retaliate, he doesn’t get the chance. A flash of yellow and silver curls around his waist, shocking him onto his back. Ilia stands triumphant behind him, flanked by Yang and Sun.

Standing, Blake smiles. “Thank you.”

“Ilia and I are going to link up with Weiss and Ruby, take out the rest of those grunts,” says Yang. “This fight is yours.”

She takes a step forward—not over Adam, but right onto his chest. He grimaces, then in a burst of sudden strength, swings for her leg.

The blade grazes the back of Yang’s thigh. She pivots, eyes afire but lips curled in a smirk as Adam scrambles back to his feet. The moment he’s steady, Yang delivers a blistering punch to his chest. It sends him flying into Sun, who traps him by the neck with his staff.

“Forgive me,” Yang says to Blake. “ _Now_ it’s your fight.”

Yang and Ilia break for the back cars, where Adam’s troops continue to climb to the roofs. Thankfully, they haven’t made it very far. Ruby and Weiss stand guard at the middle of the dining car, picking them off one by one.

Blake returns her focus to Adam. He’s the one kneeling now, Wilt still in hand but rendered immobile by the suffocating press of Sun’s staff to his jugular.

“This ends now, Adam,” Blake declares. Resolve fills her, strengthening her voice. “All your lies, your spite, your hopeless war. You are no revolution. You are a tyrant, made of nothing but the hate you thought you were fighting.”

For once, he says nothing. But only because he can’t. In place of words, he slowly lifts his sword, prompting Blake to ready her own. She knows what comes next. They have him vulnerable. She could convert Gambol Shroud into a gun, shoot him right in the chest, and be done with him for good.

It’s her heart that stops her. Unlike him, she has a conscience. And it’s not as though she hasn’t killed before: they all have, given the countless struggles they’ve endured since the night Beacon fell. But even though Adam is evil, corrupted to the bone, he still loved her, and while the hate soon took over, she would never forget the way he used to make her feel.

That wasn’t real love. Blake knows what love should be, now. She’s seen it everywhere, in all of her friends. But never more strongly than in the boy that stands across from her, holding her abuser in his grip, gazing at her with nothing more than the cautious understanding that this mission would never, ever be easy. Despite the danger before her, the realization fills Blake with warmth.

Sun doesn’t just give love—Sun _is_ love.

In his grip, Adam stops squirming. He holds Wilt parallel to his heart, clenching both hands on the hilt in a way that Blake can only perceive as fearful.

Then, he hangs his head in surrender and turns the blade toward himself.

_No._ She won’t give him the satisfaction of taking his own life. That duty, terrifying as it is, belongs to her and her alone.

She folds Gambol back into a gun, poises her finger on the trigger. No more hesitation. Squeezing her eyes to fight any more tears, she aims the barrel just above his heart—

—and his blade enters Sun’s stomach.

+

Last night, they were dancing.

Half of the Flock—as they’d begun to call themselves, being under the constant watch of resident bird-man Qrow Branwen—should’ve been in bed. Nora, Ren, Oscar, and Qrow would be on the first train out in the morning so they could meet the others at the _Valiant_ ’s final destination that night. But their Inn’s tavern was filled with starlight and music and plenty of virgin strawberry sunrises to go around, and no one was about to deny them one last night of fun before everything could go wrong.

They’d had a lot of nights like this, Blake realized. Throwing impromptu celebrations in inns and farmhouses, never knowing when they might have their last good day. It had become a weird kind of norm, their erratic spots of joy in the face of the greatest war in Remnant’s history.

Maybe this was their best form of resistance: to look adversity in the face and dance at its feet.

After a few songs with Yang, one unexpected line-dance led by Oscar, and a throwback song with Ilia, it took longer than usual for Blake to end up in Sun’s arms. As always, he greeted her with a smile and a spin before he locked a strong arm around her waist.

“Hi Blake,” he said.

“Hi.”

The music called for them to sway their hips, so they did, and Blake let herself lean into Sun a little more than usual, her arm twining the full breadth of his shoulders.

She always found Sun to be attractive; the gods knew her teammates would never let her forget the way she blushed when he winked at her on camera during the Vital Tournament. But once the Second Atlas War came to a cease-fire and hunting down a runaway Adam became their next objective—that was when she’d really started to notice him. Not so much the things he put on display, like his muscles, but more the way he felt to her. He was a good dance partner, for one. He gave warm, strong hugs. When they traveled overnight by train or airship, he let her sleep on his shoulder, or stretch her legs across his lap. As Nora put it one day, Blake and Sun just fit together.

It was funny to think how Sun was a nuisance, at first. Then a distant crush, then one of her dearest friends. Now, she wasn’t sure what he was to her, but whatever it was, she liked it—liked _him_ —more and more. 

Unfortunately, Sun wasn’t something she had much time to think on. She’d had enough to worry about lately, especially with the _Valiant_ mission the next morning. They had located Adam, and with a new plan intact, they were going to strike. Cornering him in transit, where he couldn’t run, seemed the surest way to take him down.

At least Blake hoped.

“You’re tense,” Sun said, leaning close to her ear so she’d hear him over the music. “And you’re clinging to me like a koala, so I know something’s got to be wrong.”

“I’m fine,” she replied with a roll of her eyes.

“No really, what’s up?”

“Just dance with me, Sun,” said Blake. “That’s all I want.”

He dipped her suddenly—a move he’d definitely learned from watching Yang and Weiss—and leaned in close enough to cause a stutter in her breath.

“You do not have to tell me twice.”

The night ended too soon, with Blake’s feet sore and her stomach whirling in the best way possible, especially when Sun offered to walk her to the room she shared with her team. They embraced before she slipped inside, but she felt a strange desire to do more. To kiss his cheek, or maybe even his lips. The thought scared her, but also excited her, and both feelings made her heart race a little faster.

As he turned down the hall, she made a silent promise that after tomorrow, should they both survive, she’d finally face her hesitation and figure this whole Sun thing out.

+

Blake knows she screams, but she doesn’t hear it. Regret pierces her, curdling her stomach. Through a new flood of tears, she watches Sun fall while Adam rises, smiling.

Of course he would do this. Of course he would take Sun, the brightest thing she has. The boy she _loves_.  His mission, above all else, is to break her.

But Blake is tired of being broken.

The next thing from her mouth is a name. Not Sun’s, not Adam’s, but Jaune’s. To Blake’s relief, he’s one step ahead of her. He leaps onto their train car, sword and shield at the ready, and skids on his knees to where Sun is splayed across the roof, bleeding.

“Blake, you never change. Always sending in someone else to clean up your messes,” Adam sneers, moving for her as he draws his second sword. “He won’t be able to save him. Once I have you down, I’ll kill him, too. You’ll watch all of your friends die, one by one, until you have nowhere left to run but to me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong Adam,” she says. She straightens Gambol Shroud back into a sword, filling it with dark curls of her aura. “I don’t run anymore.”

Then, she flies. Their swords collide once more, and the resulting shock knocks them both onto their backs. Blake recovers first. With another swing, she aims for Adam’s neck. Instead, her blade lands on his face, digging a red line into his cheek. She jerks Gambol Shroud upward, and Adam wails as she tosses aside his precious Grimm mask.

Even when one is marred with red, Adam’s eyes are just how Blake remembered them—gray and unremarkable. Rage contorting his face, he charges for her.

It’s hard, blocking two blades with only one. With each hit, he drives her closer to the back edge of the train car. A certain death will meet her if she falls. But she won’t. For Sun, for Yang, for herself—she’ll fight, and she’ll keep on living.

Amidst Blake’s fury, Adam finds an opportunity. His right blade strikes the side of her ribcage, ripping through her jacket and shirt. The cut sears, followed by something sharper, deeper. A broken rib, likely.

She cannot heal herself. Not now. All of her aura must go to one last blow.

Shadows should not, by any definition, be bright. But the ones within Blake _burn_ , muting the pain in her side, climbing down her arms to her weapon with all the light and fury of the sun. She lets them steer her final blow, clean through Adam’s left arm.

He drops his other sword as he falls. Blood runs everywhere—he’ll die, soon. In less than an hour. Mere minutes.

Blake doesn’t want him alive that long. Like he has with her, so many times, she’s going to strike him where he’s weakest. Only he’s not going to survive.

Pressing a boot into his stomach, she leans over him, smothering him with her shadow. His last defense is to cry. From the pain, from the heartbreak, it doesn’t matter. Blake wants him to feel all of it. Everything he put her through, magnified.

But she feels it, too. Seeing him for who he really is—arrogant and deluded, yet undeniably human—causes the tightness in her throat to become overbearing. She hates him. She loved him. They started their journey right here in this very forest, and now, she will finish it.

A tear falls. The moon crosses the sun, drowning the world in brief night. Then Blake plunges Gambol Shroud right through Adam Taurus’s empty, spiteful heart.

+

Sun feels…fuzzy.

That’s the only word he can put to it. There’s a strange warmth encasing him, causing his limbs to tingle like they’ve lost circulation. They probably have, for all the blood he lost when Adam stabbed him.

Why were Blake’s enemies always _stabbing_ him?

But he’s alive. At least he thinks. The pain in his abdomen is nothing more than a quick-ebbing burn, like a pinch. Someone holds his hand, using their other arm to support the back of his neck.

“Blake?”

It’s Jaune’s voice that answers. “Uh, sorry to disappoint?”

Slowly, Sun’s eyes flutter open. A night sky reigns overhead, blurred by rippling lines of light. Of course. Jaune is using his semblance, amplifying his aura to help him heal.

“Where’s Blake?” he asks. The question comes out weak.

“See for yourself.”

Jaune eases him into a sitting position. Blake kneels over Adam’s lifeless body, her face downturned, blade buried in his chest. Pride flushes through Sun, warm and soothing as his aura. _She did it_.

Without looking up, Blake removes her blade and kicks Adam’s corpse off the roof, down to the tracks. Then, she sheathes Gambol Shroud and rises, the wind tossing her black hair as the eclipse ends, returning the world to daylight.

Sun has never seen her so strong, so beautiful. And he’s spent a lot of time staring at her in the past couple of years.

Her gaze falls on him, and immediately, her face softens. She runs for him, calls his name, and while he tries to reach for her, he still isn’t strong enough to move.

It doesn’t matter. Blake throws herself onto the ground beside him and cups his face in her hands, bringing him close enough to see the tears glossing her eyes. The jolt he gets from her touch lends him enough strength to reach up his hands. He lays them at her hips, steadying her. Like they’re dancing.

“Love,” is all she says.

“Huh?”

“Love, Sun,” she says, eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiles. “That’s my word for you. You are love.”

And then she bridges the distance between them and crushes her lips against his.

He doesn’t know how many times he’s dreamt of kissing Blake. Too many, probably. But he wouldn’t trade this for any scenario from his daydreams. He leans in as much as he has the strength to, enough to say _I want this, I want you,_ and she only kisses him harder.

When she pulls away, she’s gasping, eyes shot wide open. “I…was that too much?”

Sun can’t help but laugh. “Blake, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for that.”

She joins him in laughter, tossing her arms around his neck. They fall back to the roof of the train, Blake halfway on top of him, and he holds her—just holds her—even while her laughter turns to tears against his chest. He hopes they’re tears of relief. Maybe joy. He doesn’t care. Whatever she feels, whatever she needs, he’ll be there because he loves her. Because he _is_ love to her.

And to him, that’s everything.

+

There is no merriment at the forest inn tonight. After the day the Flock has had, the consensus of the night is to rest as much as they can before they set out again at dawn. For most, that means sleeping, but Blake finds respite leaning on the rail of the back porch, watching the fireflies dance up from the brush.

While her rib may now be healed, thanks to Jaune, her heart has barely stilled since her showdown with Adam. She should feel relieved. He’s gone, his years of torment cemented firmly in the past, and without a leader, his rogue branch of the White Fang will surely fall—Remnant is a better place without him. Yet her fear lingers. This fight is so much bigger than Adam, and while killing him is a step towards peace, there are still forces at work far beyond her control, forces of magic and maidens and whatever the hell Professor Ozpin is.

The right word for what she feels, perhaps, is overwhelmed.

At least the fireflies are calming. Blake tries to pace her breathing to them, watching them blink between light and dark in syncopated rhythms. It’s a trick her father taught her, when she was first learning how to fight. Find something in nature and focus on it: chances are, it has much more practice than you.

“So, do I get to pick a word for you yet?”

Startled, she turns. Sun stands in the threshold to the inn lobby, tail curling lazily at his side. She smiles and gives a nod for him to come outside.

“That’s what you’re thinking about? After everything we went through today?” she remarks.

“Hey,” he says. He takes a spot on the rail beside her. “‘Love’ is a pretty heavy word.”

“I know. And I meant it.”

“Okay. I _am_ love, got it. But do you love me?”

Blake blinks. This shouldn’t be a question. She launched herself into his arms once she was free of Adam, she kissed him without hesitation after years of wondering what it might mean if she did. Of course she loves him. No matter where her journey’s taken her, he’s been the one person she can count on to be at her side, whenever she needs him—and that’s where she wants him. By her side, always.

But this is Sun. For all his light and goodness, he still finds ways to doubt himself.

“Sun,” she says, gathering his hands in hers. This seems to stun him; she’s never been the touchy one. “I have made so many mistakes in my life, most of them I wish I could go back and change. But you never judged me for them. You followed me not to convince me to be righteous like you, but because you saw how I was breaking. Because you cared about me and knew I needed help. And even though you got on my nerves sometimes, or said the wrong thing at the wrong time and _definitely_ embarrassed me in front of my parents, you showed me how to be the friend I wanted to become. You have stuck with me through everything, and it’s been long enough for me to see that you’re the best kind of person I could have by my side. So yes, Sun, I love you. Every bit of you.”

He takes a step toward her, lifting their clasped hands up to his lips. “And I love you, Blake. More than anything. But I think you knew that already.”

“I had a feeling.”

Sun bounces back and forth on his heels. “So, uh…does this mean I get to kiss you now?”

“I would be a little confused if you didn’t.”

He hooks one hand under her chin to tilt her head, then kisses her, patiently, until Blake slides her arms around his waist, lining up their bodies, and he casts aside all hesitation.

If this is what Blake’s future with Sun holds, she thinks she’s going to like it.

All too soon, Sun draws away, just far enough to still keep Blake in his arms. There’s a goofy grin on his face, one that only widens when he sees Blake is pouting.

“Hey,” she says, poking him in the shoulder. “What’d you stop kissing me for?”

“I thought of my word.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“Yep,” he says. He plants a quick kiss on the tip of her nose. “Home. I’ve been all over Remnant, and you’re the only thing that feels like home.”

Now she’s the one smiling like an idiot—she really let this Haven brat charm her after all.

“Home,” she parrots. “I like it.”

And when he kisses her again, she understands just what he means.

 

**Author's Note:**

> First off, this fic is SUPER self-indulgent because I have managed to shove within its 7000 some-odd words three of my favorite things: train battles, blacksun kisses, and Adam Taurus finally biting it. To be honest, a lot of this fic was an exercise in RWBY concept speculation. I wanted to know what would happen if the Huntsmen and Huntresses, with their larger-than-life weapons, had to fight in a small, contained space like a train car. I hypothesized some unlikely friendships. I played around with new Faunus characters. I even made a freaking Phantom of the Opera reference, if you can catch it (okay maybe this is more self-indulgence than speculation, but you know what I mean). Regardless, thanks for coming on this wild ride with me—I am ever thankful for your views, kudos, and comments, and I look forward hearing your feedback!  
> Onto some acknowledgments, I couldn’t have written this fic without my partners in brainstorming, Peyton and Crystal, who you can follow on ~Twitter~ @sunbellas and @greekfiires if you’re into that. You can also follow me @lumailia for more regularly scheduled RWBY shitposts. I’m an erratic fic author, but I tweet like clockwork


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